Monday, April 30, 2007

Unit 3: Effect of the rise in the value of the £

A great, short article on Geoff Riley's blog


Friday, April 27, 2007

Unit 3: The £:$ exchange rate and its consequences

A great article from the Guardian explaining why the £ has appreciated and why it may soon start to fall,,2063523,00.html

Unit 3: Economic growth in China and its consequences

A useful Independent article on the benefits and drawbacks of economic growth

To what extent is growth in China desirable?

Unit 3: Supply side policies

An intersting article on IT take-up across different countries

a) Why is this an example of a supply side policy?
b) What problems are there for Governments in using such policies?

Unit 3: Hyperinflation in Zimbabwe gets worse!

Latest figures show Zimbabwe's inflation rate has risen to 2200%!

Monday, April 23, 2007

Unit 3 : Inflation and its effect on the purchasing power of money

This Geoff Riley article shows how the purchasing power of £1 has fallen over time. Scary!

Unit 2: Market dominance in Dutch beer and EU reaction

The EU has discovered a cartel operating amongst Dutch beer producers

a) What is a cartel?
b) Why was this cartel formed?
c) What type of market failure does this represent?
d) What action has the EU taken?
e) Do you think this action is sufficient? What other actions could they have taken?

Unit 3: Inflation - why the UK figures are rising

Geoff Riley has this interesting summary of why the UK inflation figure has gone outside it's desired limits

Unit 3: Inflation - new powerpoint presentation

From tutor2u comes a new powerpoint presentation on inflation

Unit 3: Zimbabwe; acase of hyperinflation

The BBC reports the potential of 5000% annual inflation in Zimbabwe!

Unit 3: Why the rise in UK inflation?

This article from Evan Davis's BBC blog has an intersting view of why UK inflation is rising

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a) What are his main arguments
b) Do you agree with him?

Unit 3: Rapid economic growth in China

Watch the BBC clip and then answer the questions

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a) What component of Aggregate Demand appears to be fuelling the rapid economic growth in China?
b) What policy has the government used to try to slow the growth?
c) Why has this rapid growth not resulted in a high rate of inflation in China? Draw a diagram to show this
d) What major cost is China experiencing fro this rapid growth?

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Unit 3: Free trade verses protectionism

An articl from the Telegraph summarised on Geoff Riley's blog

a) What form of protectionism is being used?
b) How does this distort the pattern of world trade?
c) Discuss the likely consequences of the cotton market being opened up to free trade

All units : Revision material

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Unit 3: The UK's trade deficit

February saw a worsening of the UK trade deficit

a)What reasons for this worsening are suggested?
b) Should the government be worried by this piece of data?

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Unit 2: Market dominance by Apple's i-tunes

This article from Geoff Riley explains the action being taken by the EU to investigate whether Apple is abusing its dominant market position in the download market

Unit 2: Market failure; road congestion

From Geoff Riley's blog comes this idea of setting up a tradable permits system to reduce road congestion

a) What sort of market failure is road congestion?
b) Do you think this suggested scheme could work? What its potential drawbacks?
c) What alternative measures could government use to reduce this example of market failure?
d) Would this tradable permits scheme be more or less popular with the average motorist than the alternatives suggested by government?